New Introduction - January 16th, 2018: We kicked off our in-house EVO X project project in 2008, but I (Terry Fair) am going back to write the "intro" to this thread ten years later, to better match the style of build threads we have written since that time. This first EVO X MR project was initially launched by my former business partner Brian Hanchey, with the EVO he purchased. We both raced this car on track and in autocrossing over the course of two years, but strangely enough my wife Amy and I raced it more often than the car's owner, including at the 2009 SCCA Solo Nationals (below).

As you read these first few posts, remember - 2008 was smack dab in the middle of the Great Recession, fuel costs were sky rocketing (double what they are in 2018 now), and attendance at motorsports events was suffering.

At Vorshlag during this time we already had a wicked shop race car - the Alpha E36 LS1 (shown above left) - but it was a dedicated race car that had to be towed to events (getting 9 mpg using my truck), it could not be legally driven on the street, it was gutted inside, and it had relatively high expendable costs (tires, brakes, etc). This EVO X was Hanchey's answer to a multi-purpose daily driver/time trial/autocross car, with four doors to better fit his growing family. Being brand new it had a big fat warranty, too - which takes some of the "risk" out of performance driving. The initial plan was to build around SCCA Solo's STU class for autocrossing, which is relatively harmless for warranty concerns.

Left: Hanchey doing some work on the trans cooler. Right: Fair building a customer 3" exhaust

This EVO X was a brand new chassis at the time, and we were "forging a new path" with the suspension as well as the completely untested Dual Sequential Clutch transaxle new in the EVO X MR. We had developed a lot of parts and even built a few AWD Subaru rally cars but this was our first EVO, and we learned a lot from this build.

We were sponsoring an EVO forum at the time and this build thread had a lot of followers that mimicked some of the solutions (cooling, wheels/tires, exhaust, and tune) we figured out. We also used this car to develop a new Vorshlag camber plate and several AST coilover kits, and COBB used this car for the first EVO X they tuned for their AccesPort.

The stock suspension on the EVO X was very soft and the handling left a lot to be desired. In stock form Brian drove it at one NASA Time Trial (at ECR 2008, above left) and I autocrossed it like that once as well (above right). We both felt like we were scraping the door handles in turns!

The improvements we made to this '08 EVO X MR over the next 18 months were nothing short of miraculous. With upgrades to 18x10.5" wheels, 275mm tires, proper spring rates, real monotube adjustables, additional camber, more power and a few other tricks we transformed this car into a NASA Time Trial record setting car, an autocross winner, and it was still a great daily driver. Achievement: Unlocked!

Now that is is 2018 we have worked on a number of other EVO X chassis cars here at Vorshlag over the last ten years. I have changed this to a "development thread", where we can cover current and future EVO X work.

Thanks!

- Terry Fair @ Vorshlag

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Project Kick-off - September 1, 2008: We asked ourselves, are we crazy? Surely this can't be done? But what if it could? What if you could daily drive your autocross car, your track day/time trial car, AND have it be spouse and family friendly? No, that is definitely crazy!

Sure, most of us can get by. We can make sacrifices. Heck, I drove a '07 STI around town with a side pipe and no muffler all for the "sake of winning". The downside? Well, no one would drive with me, but sometimes that's good. Hey, it was light! We've all driven cars with 750 lb/in springs and twin tube shocks on the street because we couldn't afford a truck and trailer. No it doesn't ride THAT bad...does it? We've pulled the A/C out of cars in Texas to drop 30 pounds before a big event. The list goes on and on. You know who you are.

In this time of high fuel costs and tightening spending, we believe the trend of multipurpose cars will become more and more important. With gas over $4 per gallon in some places, you begin to feel the crunch when you tow a car 1400 miles to an event. When the pump shuts off at $100 and you haven't finished filling up you begin to ponder, is there a better way? I don't think as "car guys" we're about to roll over and pick a new hobby. Sure, basket weaving is relaxing, but nothing compares to wide open throttle acceleration or making yourself keep your foot down through a 100 mph corner hoping it sticks this time. No, not many hobbies compare to cars. We want to have our cake and eat it too.

So, if we could find this "car nirvana", what would it be? What would it look like and what classes could it run in? What are some nice to haves? Lists are subjective, but we had some ideas. It needs to be a smaller displacement motor so probably turbocharged. It needs to have 4 doors, gotta carry people too. All wheel drive could be nice, how many times do you lose in the rain? It happens when you bring a two wheel drive car to the event ask me. One problem though, we LIKE the way rear wheel drive cars handle. Of course we want to make parts for it so it has to have a little "left on the table" from the factory to improve on. It needs to run on street tires. Forget towing a tire trailer and changing tires at the track. We're lazy and 18" race tires have gone from pricey to astronomically pricey!

That starts the conversation and narrows it quickly in our minds. Street tires - SCCA autocross has some very nice street tire based classsing structures. We're familiar with that. NASA TT has some nice classing as well that accounts for treadwear. A plan wouldn't be complete without hoping to run One Lap of America and a return trip to the GRM Ultimate Track Car Challenge to boot! Don't forget Redline Time Attack and Super Lap Battle. All possibilities.

Again, this may be subjective, but we think we've found a car that can check all our boxes. Friday we headed over to Don Herring Mitsubishi in Irving, TX and test drove some Evos. By Tuesday the next week, we picked up our 2008 Mitsubishi Evolution X MR in Wicked White as they say. You might say, "yikes, but you didn't factor in price tag?" Yes, the price of entry into the Evo is a little steep, bordering BMW levels. But if you step back and look at the package (and magazine articles) the EVO is a relative bargain to the cars it gets compared against. All the major magazines have done "track car" articles and the Evo is coming close to cars that start at $25,000 MORE than the Evo. It has brakes, power, suspension, and again, checks off our wants and desires. Better yet, it leaves room for improvement on suspension and power! But what about fuel mileage? More on that later. We plan to improve the abysmal mileage the Evo eeks out.

In short, we'll be combining the strength of Vorshlag and AST along with a few key partners to build what we feel is the Ultimate Dual Purpose Car, Project UDP. Short term planned mods include Vorshlag camber plates, AST 4200 coilovers, turbo back exhaust, and ECU tuning by Cobb Tuning. Stayed tuned for more!

Project Update - September 5th, 2008: We've been busy little bees with the new EVO, even before doing our first new part install. First, Hanchey acquired an EVO X "GSR" model for 2 days while his "MR" was being shipped in from another city. The MR is different than the GSR cosmetically, but also in that it has an aluminum roof (no sunroof) and the killer Getrag dual clutch semi-automatic ("SST"). While he had it we partially took the GSR apart, took pics of the suspension, weighed a wheel, and corner weighed the car.

We know from experience that the EVO has a lot of "junk in the trunk", so we yanked the spare, jack, Subwoofer, and other stuff to get a "Race Weight". We also took into account the fuel load - 14 gallons, so knock another 86 pounds off of the final 3525 pounds for 3439 pound total weight, in stock form, at with no fuel. We've got some work to do on the weight, but nobody said it would be easy.

He liked driving the GSR, even with the "old skool" manual transmission. Ride quality was pretty good, power was great. But the transmission of the MR was hotly anticipated...

Then the MR arrived and the GSR was returned. The DSG trans is a thing of beauty! Hanchey can't get enough of it, and is caught constantly shifting it up and down for kicks. But the "MR" seems to ride worse than the GSR - a LOT worse. What gives?

A couple of nights ago Hanchey pulls a wheel from the MR to weigh it - and finds the front spring shipping spacers still installed! These are for transport by ship from Japan, and are supposed to be removed during "make ready" at the dealership. Amazingly, when those were removed the ride was all sorts of better.

As you can see above, the factory MR wheel (18x8.5" BBS) and Advan (245mm) weighs 46.8 pounds. Not light! We're finding lots of places where we can "get the lead out".

The EVO X is a BIG GIRL! The corner weights for the MR are shown above. Wow, 3610 pounds, we have a lot of work to do...

The 5 link rear is a nice set-up on the EVO, and what the newest STI finally went to when they ditched a strut rear set-up. The rear differential housing is also noticeably larger than the rear axle used in the GD or GR chassis Subarus.

The front and rear suspensions both make ample use of forged aluminum control arms. Nice! This shot above is of the front control arms.

Here is a weight of the EVO X "GSR" model's stock wheel and tire, at 42.8 pounds. This is the same size and tire fitment used on the MR, but weighs about a pound and a half more than the stock MR wheel/tire. Not light - but a great place to lose more weight.

Project Update - October 10th, 2008: This weekend will be our first track test of the Evo. We're going to the NASA event at Eagles Canyon. While it would have been nice to have the full suspension upgraded for this event, keeping it stock gives us a good baseline. Then we can go back to the same track and see improvements. Granted, we'll have learn this brand new track, but at least we have a baseline.

The racier 245/40-18 Dunlap Z1* tires went on the EVO X today. We'll drive out to the event on these for now. Looks like we'll run either 265s or 285s on a 18x10 before it is all said and done. We're evaluating some braking options and are going to use Racing Brake's RB800s pads for the front for this ECR event. There aren't any available options for front and rear of the Evo X from Racing Brake. Maybe they'll change that. Not many options anywhere yet.

It would have been nice to make it a little louder for the weekend. You literally can't hear the car which sucks with windows down and a bunch of loud cars running with you.

I worked on the camber plate design this week. Looks like we'll be able to build a camber and caster plate which is unique in this market. AST 4200s are being built this month as well.

Project Update - October 8th, 2008: We took some weight and size data on Hanchey's new 245/40/18 Dunlops for the EVO, shown below.

The measured section width (outside sidewall-to-sidewall measurement) will likely change once mounted. These are going to go on factory 18x8.5" EVO X/MR wheels but ideally would go on something wider, perhaps an 18x9.5" wheel (it has a 9.5" tread width, so that seems like a logical place to start).

After the first "baseline stock" track outing (ECR, Oct 11, 2008) in a new 2008 EVO X "MR" we noted that after 2-3 hard laps the transmission would overheat during each 20 minute session. This was with a totally stock suspension and drivetrain - so why didn't any of the million magazine articles praising the EVO X's flappy paddle semi-automatic "DSG" style transmission mention this after their many on-track tests? Well apparently it only happens when 1) driven harder the most automotive journalists can muster (yes, that was a jab!) and 2) when drivers employ Left Foot Braking. But ... with no clutch pedal, what sane racing driver wouldn't use LFB on track? That's one of the big pluses of these 2 pedal transmissions - the ability to let each pedal have its own foot. Colin McRae said it best about LFB use (video).

We soon found out from talking to a local Mitsubishi dealer (big props to Don Herring!) that when the brake pedal is even lightly pressed ("covering the pedal", which is what you do when you are using a Left Foot Braking technique) the clutch is semi-disengaged... allowing for clutch slip and potnetial transmission overheating. One automotive journalist did in fact have this happen during the press testing barrage, but it was overlooked. Well, Hanchey track drove the car like it should be driven - using LFB technique. That could have caused some of the overheating problem, but we wanted to improve transmission cooling just in case it reared its head again at the next track event (less than 5 days after the first event was run) or at the next autocross, where he WOULD be using LFB, by damn. What's the point of buying a $40K performance car if you have to drive it like Mr. Magoo??

The EVO X "MR" models' trans overheating woes are well known on the interweb with track drivers already, and even acknowledged by Mitsubishi dealers and Mitsu corporate. They promote the Super Sport transmission mode "for track use" but didn't quite get the cooling right on their first iteration (and even had a production halt in February on the MR to address this). We aimed to improve that instead of waiting for a "factory update".

So, after that initial track day where 3 hot laps was about the limit before "trans over temp...SLOW DOWN!" alarms would chime, we knew something had to be done to the cooling. There aren't a lot of solutions yet, so Hanchey decided to come up with his own.

After a look at the shop manual he noted problems in the ducting and location of the SST transmission cooler, and thus where some of the problems probably stemmed from - insufficient air flow to cool the heat exchanger, which was buried behind a fog light assembly, a wonky looking air duct, and cooling air that exited into the left front wheel well. Brian suggested adding a cooling fan to the back of the cooler and I suggested removing the fog lights - in the end we did both.

After Hanchey sourced a stout looking 5.2" diameter fan from Spal that was made for this type of use, we tore into the installation late one night at the shop. We thought we might be able to get away with a quick 30 minute install, but access to the front of the cooler was very limited, so off came the front bumper. I wanted an excuse to take a look under there for large lead weights or other ballast - something to explain this 3600 pound curb weight! - and we did indeed get to uncover a few things about the EVO X with a look under the skin.

The front bumper removal was the hardest part of this project, but a glance at the shop manual helped us track down the thirty or so fasteners that held the bumper cover and lower shrouds in place. Once it was off we could see that Hanchey had chosen the perfect size fan from Spal, and it went on with the included fasteners, plus a few washers and some rubber hose used to make a compliant seal between fan and heat exchanger. This was a "sucker" fan, so its mounted on the back side of the cooler. There was ample room to the fender liner to fit the fan in there, no worries.

Once the fan was in place, we removed both fog light assemblies. Good riddance to unnecessary bling - we don't have "fog" in Texas and their dead weight was covering up a good portion of two important oil coolers (engine and trans oil). We put together the wiring for the fan quickly. This included a relay and fuse for the higher current fan circuit, and a switch under the dash for the "low power" side of the relay. There was an unused 12V switched circuit in the factory fuse panel under the hood, right above the cooler & fan.

Total costs: About $100 for all of the parts, about 2-3 hours of time (possibly more if you are not familiar with removing bodywork and doing 12 volt wiring).

Another open track event was run the following weekend (same track, same format, same ambient temps; BMW at ECR). This showed the results we wanted to see - ZERO trans temp problems and improved lap times. At the end of each 20 minute lapping session the new trans cooler fan was run for several minutes while the engine sat at idle, and heat was POURING out of the heat exchanger - so the fan was definitely moving some air, and helping.

We will go back and add a new/improved duct to the trans cooler (sheet aluminum), then make some mesh coverings for both fog light openings soon. I will update this thread when we add those final bits.

Project Update for November 19th, 2008: We have done the first autocross in this EVO X, and this will be the write-up. It will also be the last event we will run using the stock suspension!

Amy and Terry (me) ran the EVO in its first and only autocross event last weekend at Le Grave Field in Ft. Worth. Sure is easy to take this car to events - hop in and drive there, air up the front tires, and race! No tire swapping, no loading truck and trailer, just go - very nice compared to our normal load the truck, trailer, car, crap process.

The early cold temps warmed up considerably and we were borrowing water to spray the overheating Dunlop Star Specs on on the front after the 2nd runs (5 runs each w/ 2 drivers). The rears just barely got up to temp (55-60°F ambient). The stock suspensioned EVO X was a huge marshmallow but it was still two tons of fun to drive! The only mod on the car - the 245mm Dunlop Star Specs - was the biggest contributor to these DL-1 data logged numbers (98% percentile, not peaks):

The numbers were pretty good considering the MASSIVE pitch, roll, drive and camber loss the under-sprung stock suspension allows. It was hilarious!

Look at the massive lean in Cornering!

Accel and Braking made for big pitch and dive!

It was like driving a big parade float... except it had a LOT of acceleration, good brakes, and the auto shifting S-Sport mode was FLAWLESS. The car would use 3rd and 1st gears where no other racers dared shift, and the data logging shows seamless acceleration during upshifts where our manually shifted cars always have a big dip in speed and acceleration. The SST magic is NOT A JOKE - this semi-automatic dual clutch business is the Real Thing. You never have to even THINK about shifting, don't even have to flick the paddles, you just mash the throttle and it is ALWAYS in the right gear. Amy and I were both Left Foot Braking everywhere, and it helped considerably.

The course had a heavy emphasis on slaloms, but the stock EVO gobbled them up with ease. The active yaw control system seems to actually work - you have to be somewhat violent with the wheel but it sticks better than you would think. There were some long sweeping corners that the car didn't like so much, due to the lean and camber loss, and we lost a lot of time there to other cars and classes we gauge by. The maximum 1.02 g avg lateral grip number is pretty low for STU cars on 140-200 treadwear tires, as we usually see 1.15-1.3g lateral in our prepped STU and STS cars. The braking numbers are OK, about what we saw in our STS prepped E30 and the old STU classed STI, but nothing like the 1.1g braking we saw in our STU E36 M3. Even with massive 2-piece rotors and Brembo calipers, you can't make up for that much dive.

The acceleration was pretty impressive, considering this thing is still bone stock and pushing 3600 pounds of puddin' around. The slower corner exits were helped dramatically by the SST's use of 1st gear. Due to a weird starting light placement that occurred in a braking zone right before a corner, far away from the actual starting line, we didn't mess with launch control as it would have been pointless.

With two driver's using LFB we knew we'd be adding extra heat to the transmission so the custom trans cooler fan was used between each run. With 2 drivers in a somewhat small run heat we were a bit pressed for time, but we did manage 4-5 minutes between drivers to swap numbers, spray the front tires, swap data cards for the DL-1, adjust the seat, and give the trans time to cool. It never had a single fault or overtemp warning, so that problem seems licked. Glad we had removed the fog lights and housings, as another EVO X driver attested to their fragility - one cone and POW they're gone. We'll not have that problem. Although Amy did have some cone issues...

The car is very wide, much wider than her M3, and Amy took a bit to gauge the corners of the EVO

As you can see the other STU cars didn't have as much lean or dive, but they were already prepped.

OK, lets discuss the magical "SST" transmission. Are the shifts as fast as they say? The data will tell us - we can compare 2-3 upshifts in a manual transmission car (our STU prepped E36 M3) vs 2-3 upshifts in the EVO X MR with the SST in Super-Sport auto mode. These graphs say it all....

E36 M3 shift, This is time vs. mph. Red, purple and black all have a 2-3 shift.

Evo X MR, black line represents acceleration from 1st through 3rd (starting in middle of graph). Red is longitudinal acceleration.

There was a cone in the middle of the section, hence the dip in acceleration. Peaked at 65mph. Possibly the two flat parts are from the shifts, but it is a little hard to tell since this data is on an autocross run and not a straight line, ruling out other variables. Regardless the car never stops accelerating and the slope of the curve only changes slightly. It has no dip in the speed vs time graph like the M3 does on an upshift.

The AST 4200 double adjustable shocks are already here and the last EVO X camber plate part we need is due later this week. We'll post more in the "Team Cars" thread when we get the suspension on. We've got a gaggle of exhaust parts here too, so we'll begin the custom 3" after-cat system tomorrow night.

Project Update for November 18th, 2008: This time we build some stainless steel mesh "Foglight Opening Covers" to keep rocks, bugs and debris out of the transmission and oil coolers.

A previous cooling mod (see earlier posts, above) left the EVO X MR's two foglight openings now completely unobstructed - begging to ingest a rock or giant bug into the pricey and essential engine and transmission oil coolers that nestle inside the front bumper cover. With track events on the schedule anything can happen if there's an "off", and our local tracks do have some rocks when you (or someone else in front of you) get off pavement. We regularly see gravel and debris slung on track and Hanchey was holding his breath at the last ECR event that none of that made its way into the oil coolers,

This project was undertaken by Brian to put some protective mesh in place of the foglights, which allow unrestricted airflow but will stop a rock or other foreign object larger than 1/4" diameter. He ordered some stainless steel "rock protection" grill mesh - he used #4 Mesh/Extra Coursefrom HRP World (24"x36" sheet was $35). This gave us enough mesh to do the foglight openings on the EVO and the main radiator inlet + two brake duct openings on our LS1 powered BMW E36. Keeping rocks off the SST trans cooler on the EVO X MR was the reason for project. We removed the foglights and factory ducting from both sides when doing the SST cooling fan mod, shown above.

The mesh is stiff and holds it shape, yet still bends and cuts easily. Its stainless steel but we painted it semi-flat black to somewhat match the factory grill mesh. We didn't put it on a 45° angle like the stock stuff, but hey, its close enough and the final project still looks damn good in person.

(click all pictures to see larger versions)

Of course we "cheated" and used the lift to make the work easier. First step once you have the car in the air is to remove the two plastic lower engine cover panels for access to the back of the bumper cover - there's no need to remove bumper cover from the car for this project. There's about 1.7 million screws and snap clips hold these two panels in place.

Each side uses approximately one rectangle that is 18" wide by 8" tall. You can go a little smaller, but there's plenty of room behind the bumper cover, so be conservative and make em larger. Use a black "Sharpie" marker to draw a line on the mesh then cut - You'll need a good pair of tin snips to cut it.

Above, left - Hanchey test fitting the mesh before painting and final attachment. At above, right the painted mesh is secured to the factory threaded stand-offs for the foglight assemblies. #8 x 3/4" long button head Phillips drive sheet metal screws threaded into the stand-offs to hold the mesh in place. Brian made some large, square surface washers to spread the load of the screw head over the surface of the mesh.

You can see the mesh in these photos above - the hand is there for contrast to show the black color. The stainless steel look would be OK if the factory grill mesh weren't black.

The final mesh covers secured before the lower engine cover panels are replaced. OK, onto the exhaust next.

Project Update for November 19th, 2008: In this installment we show the lightweight, custom, after-cat Exhaust build for the EVO X.

We plan on using the COBB Tuning downpipe, O2 housing and cat, but we wanted to make a lightweight after-cat exhaust ourselves... we have the tools... we have the technology... The Six Million Dollar Exhaust is born!

OK, so its really only about a $200 Exhaust, but who's counting? Unlike most of the off-the-shelf offerings out there (which are still few and far between for the new EVO X) we wanted to get a lightweight system with a low buck, home brew solution. No, its not titanium, or even stainless, but it is thin-wall 20 gauge (.049" wall thickness) carbon steel tubing with smooth 3" diameter mandrel bends, sourced from SPD Exhaust. We've built systems for our race cars before using SPD bends and they are very, very high quality. Not cheap, but you won't find thin walled 20 gauge bends for less (the cheaper bends are all .065" wall, or thicker).

(Click pictures for larger versions)

We used three of the 45° mandrel bends (SPD 3" ID, 4" bend radius, .049" wall thickness = thin and light), 3' of straight pipe (3" ID, SPD .049" wall) and the two mufflers shown. The U-bend and 4th mandrel 45° were not used. Since the SPD parts come from California and have a 3-4 day lead time, we ordered everything in advance and got a few extra bends, just in case. The mufflers were 3" ID low cost DynoMax "straight through" units bought from Summit Racing (you don't get much cheaper than that). And instead of the uber-light system we built for the BMW E30, which is LOUD AS HELL (16 pounds for cat + exhaust + muffler), Brian chose a larger case 3" chamber main muffler + resonator for this multi-purpose daily driver/autocross/track car. And instead of a simple dump after the rear axle, this system runs all the way to the factory rear exhaust outlet opening. The main muffler came in at 10.8 pounds and the resonator at 5.2 - the muffler is heavier than we like, so we might go back and add a flange and section of pipe to allow for quick swapping of the muffler with a lighter weight "straight pipe", to drop 10 pounds and lose more back-pressure for race use.

First step (after sourcing all of the parts) was to get the car in the air and yank the stock after-cat exhaust system off. This took literally about 90 seconds once the isolators were loose - its too easy when you have a lift. A tip for faster removal - lube all of the rubber exhaust hanger isolators with WD40 (shown above, left) and then the three exhaust hangers will pop right out. A little leverage with a prybar helps if they are stuck on.

Once the factory after-cat exhaust is off, its straight to our trusty 150 pound digital scale (+/- 0.1 lbs). I delicately balanced it on the flange with the lightest touch, and the system tipped the scales at 45.1 pounds. Our goal was to drop at least 20 pounds in this portion of the exhaust upgrade. The stock system is shown above, on the right.

We started at the OEM flange at the back of the catalyst and worked our way back. An aftermarket 2-bolt 3" ID exhaust flange was bolted up to the stock cat flange and then the system was started from there. A 3' section of straight pipe was followed by the resonator, then another 3' section of pipe (later cut down a bit). Our hydraulic transmission jack worked well as an adjustable height exhaust stand. Both the 3" ID resonator and muffler allowed for a slip-fit to the 3" tubing, which gave us 2-3" of wiggle room as these joints could each be slide in and out by that much. You can see above that one of the 45° bends was cut in half and extended in the middle to give a slight jog laterally and another jog downwards, to clear the rear diff housing. Once it was all laid out where I liked it, each section was tacked together.

OK, everything is tacked in place. Neglected to get a good picture of the system installed in the car at this stage, of course. Work up to this point took 2.5 hours - that is fully laid out, tacked-together and ready to final weld. That's where we stopped last night and I'm heading out the shop to finish the welding. Once its welded up we'll re-fit it one last time and add the exhaust hangers (oops!) then remove it again for JetHot thermal coating.

Here's the new exhaust on the scale and laid up next to the stock system. The new bits are weighing in at 23.8 pounds, so we've got a pre-coated savings of 21.3 pounds. Big thanks to DaveB for help during the entire fabrication!

More soon once I finish weld the exhaust and get it coated. Our new EVO X camber plate parts are days away, and the AST 4200s are sitting on the shelf.

Project Update for November 22nd, 2008: Well we got the exhaust finish welded and prettied up and then fire the engine... too quiet!?!

L: On the car with the massive MagnaFlow R: Seam welds ground down for coating

It seems that with a turbo plus the MagnaFlow 3-chamber "straight-thru" muffler, the new exhaust had about the same volume as stock. Part of the reasoning behind our lightweight exhaust was so we could actually hear the engine note, to help with shifting when in manual mode (as it is now we have to watch the tach - deathly silent).

L: After driving the car for a short stint the steel turned bronze colored R: outlet is on left side only

So now we're going to make an interchangeable straight pipe to replace the (11 pound) MagnaFlow muffler for track events. Then we can change it out quickly at the track for more engine noise and power. Ordering some 3" V-bands and will knock out this new optional piece, then get all of it coated. This way we can also dyno with and without the muffler quickly...